`Suspect Car` Is Checked For Evidence In Deaths Of 4

February 3, 1985

GAINESVILLE — A ``suspect car`` found at the apartment of Christopher Jennings has been impounded to be checked for evidence in the deaths of four people in Florida and New Hampshire, police said Saturday.

Residents of the apartment complex where Jennings lived said a man they identified as Daniel Mikel Daniels drove the car occasionally, said Spencer Mann, a spokesman for the Alachua County Sheriff`s Department. He said the car was impounded late Friday.

``It`s a suspect car we did not know Daniels had been in contact with,`` Mann said. ``The car, a silver Fiat, did not have license tags and we are attempting to identify the owner by using VIN (serial) numbers at this time.``

Jennings is the brother of suspected murder-suicide victim Paige Jennings and Daniels is believed to have been her boyfriend.

Mann said Friday the people found cremated in an abandoned shack had not been positively identified as Paige Jennings, 21, and Daniels, 49. A possible suicide note was found in an abandoned Fiat registered to a Dan Daniels in a field near the shack.

``Right now, the doctors are in the process of trying to identify the remains by whatever means possible,`` Mann said. ``The bodies are in such a state of cremation that identification is going to take a long time. We don`t expect to have anything before the middle of the week.``

Mann said there appeared to be a relation between the deaths of Malcolm and Elizabeth Jennings in Jackson, N.H., and the deaths of the two people found in the shack. He did not say what the link might be.

The Jennings couple was found stabbed to death in their home Jan. 16. The home was burned in an apparent attempt to mask the cause of death.

Their son, Christopher, had lived in Gainesville for a time with his sister, Paige, but returned to New Hampshire, where he has reopened his parents` popular bed-and-breakfast establishment, the Dana Place Inn.